Adolph Cornelis 'Dolf' van Bruggen (9 July 1929 – 3 June 2016) was a Dutch malacologist, entomologist, and botanist. His interest in the tropics and tropical Africa has dominated his broad scientific interest for more than 50 years now. He was an expert especially in the land snail families Streptaxidae, Achatinidae and Maizaniidae. As of 2008, he had authored some 655 scientific publications. Early years Adolph Cornelis van Bruggen was born on 9 July 1929, the eldest son of A.C. van Bruggen, Sr. and A.C.G. van Bruggen-van Eyk Bijleveld. He spent his youth in The Hague. Natural history and particularly animals always caught his attention. His father was a high-ranked civil servant at the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. The Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie was administered by that ministry at the time, and when he graduated from the Gymnasium Haganum in The Hague in 1949, his father introduced him to Dr. Carel Octavius van Regteren Altena (1907–1976), curator of Mollusca at the museum, who stimulated his interest in malacology. At Leiden University Dolf studied systematic botany, animal ecology and systematic zoology. In 1956 he graduated, after three years as an assistant to Prof. Dr. Hilbrand Boschma (1893–1976), the director of the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie, who taught Systematic Zoology at Leiden University. The start of van Bruggen's malacological career can be dated back to 1948, when he became a member of the Dutch Malacological Society (NMV). His first malacological publication, in Dutch, appeared in 1948 in the Dutch journal De Levende Natuur; a short note reporting a find of the marine bivalve Anomia ephippium, an uncommon species in the Netherlands. His very first publication had appeared earlier in the same year in the same journal; it reported a sighting of seals and a horse mackerel on a Dutch beach. It was also in Leiden that van Bruggen met his wife, Wenda van Bruggen-Gorter. She became painfully aware of his malacological interests when one day on their honeymoon in Switzerland, they were returning home late in the evening and Dolf found a beautiful specimen of the slug Limax cinereoniger that he wanted for his collection. However, not having any glass vials with him (plastic bags were unknown in those days) he asked to use Wenda's evening bag to bring the animal home. Originally intending to depart to the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) after his studies, this became impossible when